UK Prime Minister's Office: Government against COVID-19 ^{Funding Support}

Entity: The Prime Minister's Office. Executive orders

Category: Funding Support

Announcement of new UK aid funding consists of £210 million to help develop a vaccine. This new funding for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is in addition to the £40 million already given to the organisation. It will help scientists and researchers continue to lead global efforts to develop a workable coronavirus vaccine, including at the University of Oxford. £40 million to develop affordable treatments for coronavirus patients. This will support the Therapeutic Accelerator, a fund for the rapid development of anti-retrovirals or immunotherapies against coronavirus which is already backed by the UK-based Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Mastercard. It aims to make 10 million treatments available in the coming months globally, including in the UK. This funding is for all stages of the development process – the development, manufacture, trialling and approval of the new medicines. £23 million to further develop easily-manufactured testing devices. This is additional funding for the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, a partnership between academic organisations and pharmaceutical companies which will build rapid testing technology like the new prototype test developed by the Mologic lab in Bedford, which is currently funded by UK aid. £50 million in a joint campaign with Unilever to tell up to a billion people about the importance of handwashing to stop the virus spreading in developing countries. The programme will also distribute over 20 million hygiene and cleaning products. The announcement bring the total amount of UK aid committed to fight coronavirus to £544 million. This includes £71 million previously announced for the research of vaccines and diagnostic tests, to support of the World Health Organization and other international humanitarian organisations, and up to £150 million, announced in the Budget, for the International Monetary Fund to help mitigate the impact of coronavirus on the world’s most vulnerable countries. The UK has a long-term commitment to investment in vaccines and global health systems. UK aid has supported the Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for 20 years, allowing them to immunise over 760 million children and saving over 13 million lives worldwide. Gavi is expected to play a key role in ensuring that any new coronavirus vaccine is available and affordable around the world.

+ Beneficiaries:

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations
Therapeutic Accelerator
Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics